


What's Left of Humanity

by Anarhichas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fear, Gen, No Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarhichas/pseuds/Anarhichas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin's fought titans for so long he's forgotten how humans can be the enemy too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Left of Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt on the SnK kink meme: I want ANYTHING with Armin bound and gagged, and Eren saving him. ANYTHING
> 
> Concrit more than welcome!

Armin's fought titans for so long he's forgotten how humans can be the enemy too.

It's a stupid thing to lose sight of, he thinks, as he wriggles uselessly on the ground. His breath comes in choppy, wet little gasps and he is reminded forcefully of the countless times, years back, when he'd cowered under boot and fist, when humans had been his only enemy. Back when titans had been something that killed other people – people in history, people who went outside the walls. Not him. His fear then was nothing like what it is now; even through the broken bones and jeering laughs, the tears and ugly humiliation, he had never been truly afraid for his life.

He is afraid now. He is terrified. His stomach feels cold, twisted into painful knots, and he wants to throw up. He is about to cry.

The rope binding his wrists is strong and Armin knows with a sort of awful certainty that he is not going to be able to escape it. He tries anyway, pulling at the fallen beam he is tied to, kicking his bound feet on the cobbles in the agony of helplessness. He stops for breath and looks to the man and women hiding behind some rubble near the mouth of the alley. They are terrified too, and he wants to scream. The gag stuffed in his mouth, filling it with grit and dirt and tied with more thick rope around his aching head, stops him.

He is a soldier. He is meant to fight and kill titans. Instead he's nothing more than bait, a goat put out as a lure – only this trap will end not in culling but in feeding the wolves.

The man and woman will escape, Armin reminds himself. When the titan sees him it will walk past them and they'll be able to escape out of this dead end. Probably. Maybe they'll even survive to find proper help. As a soldier he's meant to sacrifice himself to save others, and he knows that. He hadn't minded – at least, not minded so much. He tries to tell himself that but it doesn't quell the abject fear filling his head up with white noise, not when he's bound and gagged on the floor. He wants to die fighting. He wants a quick death, a painless death. He wants to die knowing that his friends and team are safe, that his life and death had real meaning.

No – not even that. He doesn't want to die at all.

He shouldn't have said that his gas had run out, that he was just as helpless as any of them. He should have gone out alone and looked for supplies. He should have remembered that what's left of humanity can be just as dangerous as any titan.

Armin shudders and twists on the damp ground, pulling at the wooden beam, the remnants of a broken down house. He might as well be pulling at the earth itself for all he manages. He pulls until it feels like his arms are about to break and the bones pop from their sockets. He pulls until his head feels ready to burst. His throat whines around the gag and he doesn't know how to silence it. He should be more dignified but Armin cannot stop; he is more frightened than he has ever been before. He doesn't want to die.

The sound of heavy footsteps in nearby streets make the ground shiver, but for now he has not been discovered. The town is small, though, and it will not be long.

Time is hard to measure. Armin has no idea how long he lies there, defeated by two desperate people he had trusted enough to turn his back to. They are holding hands, he cannot help but see. They crouch together, holding hands and pressed forehead to forehead. Are they a couple? Family? Or complete strangers? He can’t tell. They are crying and Armin hates them wildly, wholly, deep in his bones.

He would have done anything to help them. Anything and everything. Instead they clubbed him over the head and tied him up. Instead they killed him.

His wrists and hands are numb. Breath shakes in his lungs and trembles from his nose. Armin closes his eyes tight because he can hear the footsteps, lumbering and stupid, getting louder. His heart drums in his chest like a trapped bird. He hopes he is not sick, because he doesn’t want to be choking on vomit even as he’s eaten alive, then briefly hopes he is sick because maybe he will choke to death before the titan reaches him.

Armin opens his eyes then and hates himself too, for his cowardice, for his uselessness. Eren wouldn’t think like that. Eren wouldn’t be so weak as to end up like this. Mikasa wouldn’t have misjudged her gas levels so badly in the first place. No one else could die like this but him.

The titan looks down the alley they’re in and time seems to stop. It sees Armin and its eyes light up, focus, and its brainless walk becomes a single minded tramp. Its head is small for its body but its open mouth is giant.

Armin closes his eyes again. He struggles, useless and weak, already feeling the memory of a tight grip close around him. Will its strength be enough to break the rope or will his own hands tear off first? The sound of blood howls in his ears. He is so frightened it hurts.

A hand grabs him and he cannot help it – Armin cries out, muffled and wet and pathetic behind the gag. He curls up on himself, instinct screaming at every muscle in his body to run, to fight, but he is frozen even under the rope. His body, shaken too and fro, does not feel like his own any more.

It takes a moment to realise that he is still on the ground, and it’s that strangeness that opens his eyes. Another moment passes before he realises that it’s Eren who is holding him tight, human hands around his shoulders, and the titan with its neck sliced open is on the ground, still in the mouth of the alley.

Eren, face white, says something Armin does not hear over the roar in his ears, the shock of continued life making everything unreal. Eren lets go of his shoulders and fumbles instead with the rope tying the gag in place. Frustrated after several over-long seconds he uses one of his blades to cut it, then the rope around Armin’s wrists.

His hands are still numb, swollen and bruised, but he grasps Eren tight in his arms. Eren lets him, just for a second, then pulls him up to his feet. “Who did this?” he says, voice tight with both fury and receding fear. He doesn’t understand that the man and woman had only done it to save themselves, Armin realises. Because they hadn’t wanted to die either. “Who did it? I’ll fucking kill them–”

Armin shakes his head. He is still shivering, and looking down he can see that he’s torn off a fingernail. It doesn’t hurt, though he supposes abstractedly that it will soon. He looks to the rubble where the man and woman had been hiding but they’re nowhere to be seen.

“We need to go,” Armin says. “Though I ran out of gas.” His voice sounds strange to his own ears. Shame is starting to creep up his skin like oil, sticking like tar, and he cannot look Eren in the eye.

“But–“ Eren says, and Armin cuts him off.

“Please.” Eren doesn’t reply to that. His knees are bloodied, the trousers there torn.

“Alright,” Eren says, anger and reluctance obvious in his tone. He’s going to ask again later, but so long as it’s not now Armin doesn't care. “Can you hold onto my back? I don’t think there’ll be any more, but it’ll be safer on the roofs. There’s spare gear with the horses.”

He turns without another word, crouching to let Armin climb on, which he does. “Thank you,” Armin says, shaky and small, and Eren pauses.

“No problem,” he says, a little awkwardly, and then they're off and the rush of wind drowns out anything more Armin could say. He looks down instead, trying to spot the man and woman, but in the empty streets sees nothing but rubble and blood.


End file.
